The MEK’s Useful Idiots

If you are a Muslim American who is appalled
by U.S. foreign policy, most specifically its penchant for invading
Islamic countries in a bid to change their regimes, and you make the
mistake of saying something to that effect on the phone or writing about
your concerns in an email, there is a good chance that the FBI will
come after you. You will in short order find yourself with a new
friend who is a Muslim just like you and who shares your frustration
with American foreign policy. At a certain point he will reveal
his affiliation with a certain overseas group that is interested in
obtaining revenge for all the Muslims who have been killed or injured
by the United States. He will suggest that doing something about
the problem would be neither sinful nor really wrong, and he will hint that
he has access to the weapons or bombs that could be used for a revenge
attack. You take the bait. The
bomb or gun is a dud and the new friend turns out to be an FBI informant.
Another “terrorist” is arrested and sent to jail for 20 years.
End of story.

Americans who are not Muslim should be
concerned by the repeated entrapment of so-called terrorists, first
of all because the process reveals that our private communications are
no longer very private. Second, the law enforcement use of a planted
informant to encourage
and enable someone to commit a crime used to be illegal. It is
not so anymore.

Many of the terrorism cases are not related
to actual terror but rather to what is described as material support.
It is interesting to read what exactly the United States Code states. It is 18 USC
§ 2339A — Providing Material Support to Terrorists:

(a)
Offense.—Whoever provides material support or resources or
conceals or disguises the nature, location, source, or ownership of
material support or resources, knowing or intending that they are to
be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a violation of section
[38 sections and acts are cited] or in preparation for, or in carrying
out, the concealment of an escape from the commission of any such violation,
or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this
title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both, and, if the death
of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or
for life. A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any Federal
judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or
in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law.

(b) Definitions [my emphasis]:As used in this section—(1)the term “material support or resources” means any property,
tangible or intangible, or service, including currency
or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services,
lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses,
false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities,
weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals
who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine
or religious materials; … (3)the term “expert advice or assistance” means advice or
assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized
knowledge.

To see how loose the definition
of support can be, consider an actual
case dating from September
2011. Pakistan-born Jubair Ahmad, 24, was accused of providing material
support to the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT),
which is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
Ahmad produced and posted a propaganda video for LeT “glorifying violent
jihad” in 2010, some three years after he arrived in the United States
with his parents and two younger brothers. “Terrorist organizations
such as LeT … use the Internet and other media as part of well-orchestrated
propaganda campaigns,” the FBI stated in its affidavit on Ahmad. Though the charge is not
spelled out in any more detail, one would assume that Ahmad is considered
to be guilty of providing “expert advice or assistance” to LeT.

Which brings me to the subject of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, better known as MEK. The MEK has been
on the State Department roster of foreign terrorist organizations since
the list was established in 1997. Its inclusion derives from its
having killed six Americans in the 1970s and from its record of violence
both inside and outside Iran since that time. The group was driven
out of Iran, denied refuge in France, and eventually armed and given
a military base by Saddam Hussein. Saddam used
the group to carry out terrorist acts inside Iran. The MEK is widely
regarded as a cult and is headed by spouses Massoud
and Maryam Rajavi. Its members are required to be celibate, and there
are reports that they are subjected to extensive brainwashing, physical
torture, severe beatings even unto death, and prolonged solitary confinement
if they question the leadership. One scholar who has studied them describes their beliefs as a “weird combination of Marxism
and Islamic fundamentalism.” Like many other terrorist groups, the MEK
has a political wing that operates openly, the National
Council of Resistance, which is based in Paris, and another front organization
called Executive Action, which operates in Washington.

The U.S. military and the CIA have
in the past recruited MEK agents to enter Iran and report on nuclear
facilities. Other MEK agents, recruited and trained by Israel’s
Mossad intelligence agency, have recently killed a number of Iranian
nuclear scientists and officials. The group appears to have ample
financial resources, and it is generally believed that at least some
of the money comes from Mossad. The MEK is able to place
full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers and is also known to pay hefty
speaker’s fees to major political figures who are willing to speak
publicly on its behalf. The group claims to want regime-change
in Iran to restore democracy to the country, an odd assertion as it
itself has no internal democracy.

Because the MEK is a resource being used
by Israel in its clandestine war against Iran, it is perhaps inevitable
that many friends of Israel in the United States are campaigning vigorously
to have the group removed from the terrorism list. Indeed, neocons
at their various think-tanks and publications as well as AIPAC all support
delisting the group. At this moment, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, not surprisingly, appears to be inclined to give in to the
pressure and delist the MEK once it completes its departure from Camp
Ashraf in Iraq, where it has been based for the past 20 years.
There might be some problem in arranging the move, as few countries want
to take the MEK supporters, fearing that they would have to be deprogrammed
from their brainwashing.

The MEK’s friends argue that the group
has not killed anyone since 1999, though the recent assassinations employing
MEK members belie that assertion, as do FBI reports revealing terrorist
planning as late as 2004. Many speakers defending the MEK have also admitted
that they do not know much about the group, most particularly in regard
to its cult status, though they insist that their support is based on
the fact that the organization is now not lethal (and, of course, the
handsome speaking fees they have received).

The well-connected friends
of the MEK include well-known neocons like John
Bolton and James Woolsey. And there is also the paid supporting
cast including former head of the Democratic Party Howard Dean; former
New York mayor Rudy Giuliani; ex-CIA director Michael Hayden; former
generals
Anthony Zinni, Peter Pace, and Hugh Shelton; former congressman Lee
Hamilton; ex–attorney general Michael Mukasey; former Homeland Security
director Tom Ridge; former national security adviser Jim Jones;
ex-senator
Robert Torricelli; former FBI director Louis Freeh; and former New
Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Current representatives Dana
Rohrabacher
and Brad Sherman also openly support the MEK and joined 96 other
congressmen in calling for the lifting of the terrorism label.

Lee Hamilton has praised the MEK for providing
useful intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, but some
of the intelligence in question is believed to be fabricated
by the Mossad. Hamilton subsequently admitted that he was paid a “substantial
amount” to speak and conceded that he might have been fooled by the group’s democratic credentials. “You always can be misled,” he
said. Ethically challenged former senator and current lobbyist
Robert Torricelli is less flexible, stating that he is “personally offended” by the
group being listed as terrorist, noting that it can be “used” against
Iran.

In August 2011, Rep. Ted Poe
of Texas struck a similar note, referring to the MEK as “freedom fighters,” the only “real”
opposition to the government in Tehran. Retired Air Force Lt.
Gen. Thomas McInerney advocates delisting the group so it can undertake “provocative
actions” against Iran, which he describes as killing Iranians if and
when they kill Americans. So the objective for some MEK supporters clearly
seems to be to give a pass to a terrorist group and to even encourage
it to undertake violent action, as long as it is “our” terrorist
group attacking people that we consider the bad guys.

Given the history of the MEK as a terrorist
organization and the deliberately broad wording of the relevant U.S.
statute, it would seem that speaking on behalf of the group amounts
to material support of terrorism. So I have to ask why is it that
the numerous prominent MEK supporters are walking free while Jubair
Ahmad can be called a terrorist for the exercise of what might well
appear to be similar First Amendment rights in producing something for
a website? Can it be that the richly compensated MEK spokesmen
are too important to arrest? Or is there one justice system for
working-class Muslims and another for blowhards like John Bolton?
Or is it just a fool’s game with the usual Washington crowd queuing
up for a bad cause because they are both lining their pockets and
thinking
they are helping Israel? In any event, it is a poor bargain for
the rest of us, but that hardly seems to matter anymore.